I just spent five glorious days with my good friends, Michael and David. They live in a beautiful home overlooking the Blue Ridge Mountains. What a time I had! What hospitality! A private suite, full breakfast, afternoon cocktails on the porch, gourmet dinner served at 7:30. These are true Virginia Gentlemen.

While strolling through the rooms of this delightful home I came upon walls filled with intricate pieces of needlepoint. These were stitched with perfection and framed tastefully. Both Michael and David bring love and talent to the pieces they create.

Nina stayed home with her daddy and had a marvelous time. Although she didn't get to see her favorite pen pals, she did receive a brand new friend, Click the Otter.

I love handwork, those I've tried and those I have on my list of "need to try". This weekend I was making jewelry, putting together lampwork beads, semi-precious stones and wire work. It was challenging but very gratifying. I love working with jewelry tools, different pliers and such. On Wednesday I leave for a class in bead looming. That's all I need, another obsession. But I can't help myself, I want to try it all.

This Mother's Day I had both my girls with me and it was blissful! Shiri came in from New York and the three of us spent most of the weekend drawing, crafting, stitching and chatting away. Nina, my six year old, learned how to quill, (paper quilling). Her little fingers became more and more nimble as she inserted the little strips of paper into the quilling tool. The look of intense concentration on her face and the little whispered sounds of achievement or exasperation were enough to make me want to eat her up. Shiri and I were busy working on ideas for invitations to the wedding and coming up with color possibilities. Then she sat down with a piece of needlepoint I was working on and began drawing. She carefully and lovingly drew each stitch, each thread, every shade of color. She truly has hands of gold.

"Midnight Garden" is a sampler-type piece that I designed using only two types of fiber: The Caron Collection Watercolours and Waterlilies. It is a very popular design, mainly, I think, because it gives the stitcher an opportunity to work with many different colors and even more different stitches. It is worked on black canvas! I've put together a new colorway for the garden (at the top of this posting). If you go to my website here you'll see it has a special sale price in honor of...of...well, in honor of anything.

Alexandra, who you met in the last posting, is my new assistant. I had her plunge into the wild waters of my studio and put together a new colorway for "Grace". Here it is...

Pretty good, eh? It's great having another artist here in the studio. You can find this colorway at a special price on my website as well (here).

Hi Everyone! My name is Alexandra and I'm Orna's new assistant here at her craft shop. I thought I should introduce myself as maybe I will post here from time to time. I graduated in 2006 with a B.F.A in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design. Below is a painting of mine, and as you can see I love color just as much as Orna.

I have only been working here two weeks but I have learned so much. Right now I am mostly helping with sending out orders and putting together kits and booklets, but there is always a lot to be done and it's so exciting to be behind the scenes helping out. If anyone needs anything or has any questions, don't hesitate to ask me!

I pulled out these two oldies but goodies today. These two pieces are called Jungle Mates. I designed them back in 2001. They involve different types of threads, different fabrics and to top it off some beads, pearls and two great focal lampwork beads. It's a mish-mash but it works. I love that. There will be no matchy matchy in this studio!!